Hanns Scharff

Hanns-Joachim Gottlob Scharff (16 December 1907 – 10 September 1992) was a German Luftwaffe interrogator during the Second World War. He has been called the "Master Interrogator" of the Luftwaffe, and possibly all of Nazi Germany; he has also been praised for his contribution to shaping U.S. interrogation techniques after the war. As an Hauptgefreiter (approximately equivalent to NATO rank code OR-3), he was responsible for interrogating captured American fighter pilots after he became an interrogation officer in 1943. He has been highly praised for the success of his techniques, in particular, because he never used physical means to obtain the required information. Scharff's interrogation techniques were so effective that he was occasionally called upon to assist other German interrogators in their questioning of allied bomber pilots and aircrews, including those crews and fighter pilots from countries other than the United States. Additionally, he was charged with questioning many more important prisoners who were funnelled through the interrogation center, such as senior officers and famous flying aces.

In 1948, Scharff was invited by the United States Air Force to lecture on his interrogation techniques and first-hand experiences. The U.S. military later incorporated his methods into its curriculum at its interrogation schools. Many of his methods are still taught in U.S. Army interrogation schools. Scharff was granted immigration status.

From the 1950s until he died in 1992, he redirected his efforts to creating mosaics. He became a world-renowned mosaic artisan, with his handiwork on display in locations such as the California State Capitol; Los Angeles City Hall; several schools, colleges, and universities, including the giant Outdoor Mosaic Mural facade of the Utah Tech University Fine Arts Center; EPCOT Center; and in the 15-foot arched mosaic walls featuring the story of Cinderella inside Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World, Florida.

Biography

Early life

Scharff was born on 16 December 1907, in Rastenburg, East Prussia (now Kętrzyn, Poland), to Hans Hermann Scharf and Else Scharf (née Jahn) and was the second of three sons, the elder being Eberhardt and the younger, Wolfgang, who died in his teens. Hanns Scharff added an extra 'f' to the end of his last name as an adult; some ancestors spelled their last names that way.

Scharff's father, a Prussian Army officer before and during the First World War, died in 1917 in Wiesbaden from wounds received during World War I on the Western Front in France in July 1916. He was the recipient of the Iron Cross (I and II Class), the Reuss Cross, and the Hanseatic Cross, "all for bravery in combat," of which his son was immensely proud.

Scharff's mother was the daughter of one of the founders of one of Germany's largest textile mills. Her father, Christian G. Jahn, lived at the spacious Villa Jahn in Greiz, adjacent to the family's large textile factory compound. After Hans Hermann Scharff's first stint in the army before World War I, he joined Christian Jahn as a partner in the textile business, moving his family into the Villa Jahn to live with his father-in-law. His son, Hanns Scharff, was raised in the Villa Jahn until adulthood and schooled in Leipzig. During his schooling there, he was first trained in various forms of art, which eventually served as a basis for his profession after World War II.

Pre-war career

Scharff's older brother, Eberhardt, was expected to take over the textile business from his grandfather, Jahn. Hanns was also encouraged to learn the family business and trained for three years in textiles and weaving while still a teenager. Next, he was trained in merchandizing and marketing, and finally exporting. Scharff then traveled to work in the Adlerwerke Foreign Office in Johannesburg, South Africa, to gain experience in sales (specifically of the Adler automobiles produced in Frankfurt) for one year. However, he was so successful at his job that, instead of returning to Germany, he was promoted to Director of the Overseas Division and continued to make Johannesburg his home for the next ten years leading up to the outbreak of World War II.

While in South Africa, Scharff met and married a South African British woman, Margaret Stokes. Margaret was the daughter of Captain Claud Stokes, first a pilot in Rhodesia in 1913, and later a squadron leader and flying ace in the Royal Flying Corps.

World War II

Pre-Auswertestelle West military career

Scharff was visiting Greiz during the summer of 1939 when World War II broke out. Because of the war and inability to travel, he was more or less stranded in Germany. After finding work in Berlin and while living in Berlin with his wife and then three children, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht; he subsequently trained for two months in Potsdam. Scharff was originally to be posted to the Russian Front. However, when Margaret Scharff learned of her husband's destination, she intervened, angry at the thought of a fluent English-speaking German soldier's life being wasted at the Eastern Front. She talked her way into the office of a German general in Berlin and pleaded her husband's case, convincing the general of the error which was about to take place. The general sent a telegram to Scharff's panzer unit, informing his superiors that Scharff was to be transferred immediately to the Dolmetscher Kompanie XII (Interpreters Company 12), based in Wiesbaden, to serve as a German/English interpreter. He had been slated to leave for the Russian Front the morning the telegram arrived. His fellow grenadiers were sent on to Russia.

After traveling by train to Wiesbaden, Scharff asked at the train station where Dolmetscher Kompanie XII was based, not having been given any indication of its location before leaving his panzer unit. Unfamiliar with Kompanie XII, the Military Police at the train station directed Scharff to report to another panzergrenadier battalion destined for the Eastern Front. Frustrated and concerned over his new battalion's unwillingness to transfer him to his correct unit, Scharff recalled his father's letter to each of his boys shortly before he died. In the letter, his father told him that, should he ever need help or guidance, he should contact one or both of his dearest friends in his regiment, Majors Ledebur and Postel. Scharff contacted then-Lieutenant Colonel Postel, who agreed to take his situation up with the commanding general, whom he knew personally. The next morning, the general telephoned the panzer unit and ordered that Scharff be released to his proper unit.

After arriving at Kompanie XII in Mainz, Scharff trained in British nuances and military organization. During the spring of 1943, he was promoted to Hauptgefreiter and transferred to headquarters in Wiesbaden. Unsatisfied with his job of "manufactur[ing] little round holes" as a clerk at headquarters, he joked to the adjutant that he had figured out that the cost of each hole he punched was five pfennig. The adjutant informed the general of Scharff's calculations, and the general summoned Scharff and told him that he did not like low-ranking personnel "figuring out costs that were none of their business." However, after hearing Scharff's story, the general agreed to send him – only one of three allowed per year – to the Luftwaffe interrogation center at Oberursel to interpret for the interrogators.

Auswertestelle West Interrogation Officer

The Luftwaffe interrogation centre at Oberursel, just north of Frankfurt, was officially known as Auswertestelle West (Intelligence and Evaluation Center West). It served as the initial in-processing and interrogation centre for all captured Allied Air Force personnel, except for Soviet aircrews, who were interrogated elsewhere. Upon arrival, Scharff began in the Camp Office – Reception and was eventually promoted by the Chief of the Fighter Interrogation Section, Hauptmann Horst H. "Big Chief" Barth, to assistant interrogation officer of the American Fighters section responsible for the 8th and 9th Air Forces. It was during his training as an assistant interrogation officer that Scharff claims he learned his interrogation techniques through observation; he was never formally trained.

He assisted two interrogators named Weyland and Schröder who interrogated USAAF fighter pilots. While Scharff was on leave in late 1943, Weyland and Schröder went up in a Fieseler Storch aircraft with a Luftwaffe fighter pilot from the Kampfgeschwader 27 unit at Eschborn Airbase. The aircraft's engine malfunctioned, and the plane crashed, killing the pilot and Schröder and mortally injuring Weyland. The accident prompted Barth to promote Scharff to interrogation officer of the USAAF Fighter Section; he was also officially transferred from the Army to the Luftwaffe but was not promoted in rank. He was later provided with an assistant interrogator, Otto "Canadian Wild Bill" Engelhardt.